That left Zach with two options. He could charge the rock and hope he could get around it before he was shot, but his chances were slim. Or, he could make a run for the other side of the hill. That maneuver would be unexpected and he might make it the short distance over the top before his adversary realized what was happening. There was another gunman on that side, but Zach had a general idea where that man was, and he would have the element of surprise on his side.
He leaped to his feet and started to run. The man behind the rock rose and brought his weapon to bear on Zach.
Zach was in the shooter’s sights before he took two steps.
* * * * *
Chapter 13
TWO shots rang out so close together that it was almost as one. The man at the rock threw up his hands, blood flowing from two shots to the head, and slumped to the side toward the hill. His weapon fired, but he jerked it when the bullets hit his head and the shots went wild.
Zach spotted the man on the other side as soon as he cleared the top of the hill. He dove, his weapon firing in that direction. The man jumped up to return the fire, but was hit immediately with a shot from somewhere on the other side.
The firing stopped, and all was quiet. He got to his feet and looked towards the location of the two boats. The three men dived into the water and were being pulled up by the man in one of the boats. The other was already backing up. It turned and sped southeast, away from the area.
Zach surveyed the situation – the settlements gained some valuable weapons as a result of this attack. Then he saw movement out the corner of he is eye. He looked over at the other hill, and a man stood, looking his way for a moment. Zach thought to bring the binoculars to his eyes, but reconsidered. This man obviously cherished his anonymity. Zach saw that the unknown shooter’s hair was long, as was his beard. The man gave a little waist high wave of acknowledgement; then he was gone.
He would thank that man someday. Now was not the time.
* * * * *
Mae and Denise Arthur went below to set aside the AK-47s they had just used.
“I’ll clean them,” Mae said.
“I’ll help,” said Denise. “I fired it.”
“How are you doing, Denise?”
“Fine, Grandma. Why?”
“You know that I was the one who killed him, don’t you?”
“It’s okay, Grandma. I’m not going to get sick or anything.”
“I know you’re a tough kid, but I just wanted you to know that I shot first, so the bullet that killed him was mine.”
“I appreciate your wanting to save me grief, Grandma,” the girl said. She was about to tell her grandmother that she had killed a man close up just over a month before, but she decided that knowing that might upset the woman and it would serve no good purpose. Besides, maybe the older woman did shoot first. “Yes,” she said, “now that I think about it, I heard your shot as I pulled the trigger.”
Mae slumped down on a built-in sofa in the salon. She held her arms out. The thirteen-year-old joined her, and they hugged. Both knew they did what they had to do. One had saved her son, the other her father, but neither felt good about having to do it. They remained in one another’s arms for several minutes, the older woman’s breath catching at times, and the girl choking back sobs.
* * * * *
The bazookas, the other weapons, and the bags of ammunition were collected and inventoried. All ended up in the storage in the building at Isthmus Cove; it was getting rather full.
Storing supplies of all kinds was easy, but in the short time the new people was on the island, another kind of accumulation progressed. This one wasn’t as easy to deal with. The disposal of dead bodies had never been an issue, but it looked like it would be a regular function, and so it became a priority. There were no ordained church officials in the group, but several men and women had been active in their churches and they handled the religious services. That included burials was well as regular weekly services. Those living on the island had a choice of burial on land or at sea. Because there was no way to handle it, cremation was not an option.
The thirteen men who had come to kill the island leaders were placed on a forty-six foot power boat that was anchored in Catalina Harbor. The crew weighed anchor and the would-be pirates were taken out several miles, and after a brief service by a volunteer clergyman, their bodies were deposited into the cold ocean waters.
* * * * *
Chapter 14
MADRUGA took Mary back to the Tracy Inn.
Having dealt with thieves all his adult life, he was adept at picking locks; it took him only a few seconds to open the door. They walked quietly through the banquet hall and found the mop and bucket. Both appeared to be where she had left them. At Madruga’s whispered suggestion, she studied them. After a moment, she reported that she was certain they hadn’t been moved.
Satisfied that the bad guys had not discovered Mary’s absence, Madruga let himself out the back door. Mary made a point of making noise as she went back to her mopping. That was also Madruga’s idea. He thought it best that the bad guys get to know she was there by the noise she made. That way, they might assume they were alone and no one could hear them when it was silent. As anticipated, when they heard her, their conversation became hushed.
That lasted several minutes. Then, after she finished her work in the banquet hall, she went out the back door. The water bucket was on a small-wheeled tray. The wheels squeaked, and, because of the noise, she normally carried the bucket from place-to-place. This time she let the wheels squeak away. She walked over to another door, this one leading to the lobby.
The guard eyed her cautiously, and the conversation in the lobby came to a complete halt as she walked through the room and over to the stairway.
“I finished the banquet hall, governor,” she said to Silva as she passed. “I have some work to do in the offices at the far end upstairs. That’s what you want me to do, isn’t it?”
“Ah, yes, sure, Mary,” Silva said absent-mindedly. “Go ahead.”
All was quiet as she walked up the stairs, carrying the tray, bucket, and mop. Once on the second floor, she set the tray and bucket down and walked down the hall. The sounds of her footsteps and the squeaky wheels dwindled. The men resumed their discussions when they no longer heard Mary and her wheeled tray.
* * * * *
The three “state officials” spent the late morning and early afternoon hours going over details regarding how they were going to maintain people in commune-type facilities after Slaughter’s men rounded them up and brought them in.
Several motels near the freeway that passed through Tracy on the way from what used to be San Francisco to what had been Stockton and Sacramento still had some usable rooms. All were empty and both Silva and Venable liked them as possible housing facilities.
Slaughter argued that there were not enough rooms, nor enough facilities for things such as cooking and laundry. He had his mind set on Barnes Occupational Center, the prison he had escaped from when the war erupted. The warden and the guards were all killed, and the prisoners had either died or escaped. Many became part of Slaughter’s “state militia.” The facility, ten miles east of Tracy, was near the San Joaquin River, so there was water even if the wells were not functional. It had several times the number of usable beds than all of the motels, combined, that Silva and Venable favored. The way it was set, it would make it easy for Slaughter’s men to watch the workers at all times.
“Mal, being in a prison would make the people feel like they were our prisoners,” Venable complained.
“That’s what they’re going to be,” Slaughter noted firmly.
“You’ll know that, and we’ll know that,” Silva said. “For that matter, some of them might even know it. But we have to let them convince themselves that they’re free as birds.”
“You think they’re that stupid?”
“Not stupid,” Silva said, smiling. “Gullible is a better word. The kind we want will be easy
to lead.” He took on the demeanor of a teacher. “Keep in mind, Mal, that we don’t want the kind who stand up for themselves like those fools on Catalina Island. There may be several enclaves like that around the state, and you need to avoid them. In fact, stay away from anybody who looks self-sufficient. Those will produce, and we can go back later and get taxes from them. Plenty will do our bidding without our having to resort to force out there. . . if we handle it right. One way of doing that is by setting them up with reasonably nice facilities at the motels instead of a prison.”
“Give ‘em drugs,” Slaughter suggested. “In no time at all, they’ll be begging to do a little work just to get the stuff.”
“Too hard to come by anymore.”
Slaughter shrugged. “Well, that’s your department. Me, I’d chain ‘em and whip ‘em if they didn’t do what I said.”
“Look, Mal. . . ” Venable began, but Slaughter put up a hand to stop him when he heard a squawk coming from the single sideband radio.
“That should be the guys who went out to Catalina.” He looked at his watch. “They’re probably calling to report that they finished off the top guns out there.”
He went behind the reception counter, picked up the microphone, and talked for several minutes. Silva and Venable did not feel reassured when they saw the look on his face as he listened to what the caller saying.
“What?” Venable called out when the militia chief put down the microphone. Slaughter didn’t respond right away. He went back to the lobby and again sunk into the easy chair. He shook his head. “The rats had an ambush all set up, waiting for our guys. My man said there were at least a dozen trained fighters with automatic weapons in hiding. They opened fire on our militia without a word of warning. The three in the rear guard managed to get away. They said they put up as good a fight as they could, but the odds were too stacked against them. All they could do was fight their way back to the boats and get out of there. Only five out of eighteen made it out alive.”
Silva was fuming. “Did they kill any of the leaders out there?”
Slaughter again shook his head. “How could they? They were killed before they could get within range.”
“What about the weapons?” Venable asked. “The bazookas?”
“My guy didn’t say, but it sounded like they were lucky to get themselves out of there, never mind the bazookas. The big stuff was probably up front, so I’d say it was all left behind.”
“So, those people on Catalina not only murdered more militia members, they stole state property.” Silva turned to Venable his eyes fierce. “VeeVee, get a warrant out for the arrest of the leaders of that group.” He hadn’t calmed any when he looked at Slaughter. “Mal, get that militia built up fast so you can get out there and arrest them. They’ll be our fist hangings.”
“Dick,” Venable said quietly, “there are no courts and no judges: I can’t get a warrant.”
“We need to set up courts,” Silva decided. “Mal, are there any lawyers in your militia?”
“Jailhouse lawyers.”
Silva was seething. “That’s not good enough. Those people out there are getting to be too big a problem, and we need to put a stop to it. Mal, get the stuff for the warship, and tell McFee to build up the navy, fast. Make sure you’ve got a lot of good storm troopers, not a bunch of incompetents like you sent out there this morning. We need troops good enough to kill all those people.”
“You said to only kill the leaders, to let the others alone.”
Silva jumped to his feet, clenching his fists. He stood threateningly over Slaughter and screamed angrily. “That was before. Now I say kill them all. Raze every building out there. Destroy the whole lot of them!”
Slaughter was a tough man who feared no one, and he was twice Silva’s size. However, he knew that a future of riches lay with the politician, no matter how crazy he may be at times. He calmly said, “Relax, Dick, I was just thinking about what you said before, that they’re productive. As usual, you were right. We stand to lose some important tax revenue.”
Somehow, Slaughter’s pacifist demeanor and quiet words calmed Silva, and his tantrum dissipated as quickly as it had erupted. He took a deep breath and sat back on the sofa. When he spoke, there wasn’t a hint of anger in his voice. “They are, and we can use what they have on hand. However, they have defied us too strongly and can’t be allowed to live. Have your people kill them, but try not to destroy their supplies.” He was smiling now, an evil smirk that showed no sign of mirth. “When I say kill them, I mean every man, woman, and child. They will be the example for others who might otherwise think of defying us. Everyone needs to know what the penalty is for resistance.”
“Okay,” Slaughter replied. He was smiling, too. He liked this plan better than the one that let people live. “We’ll get to it as fast as we can get some big guns on board the cargo ship, enough boats to hit every part of every port, and a sufficient number of troops for the cleanup work on shore. It’s not a big island, so that shouldn’t take long. We should be able to wipe those Catalinans off the map within a month.”
* * * * *
Chapter 15
TO Mary, what Silva and the men said sounded confusing. She had no idea if what she overheard was important, but it might be. She was conscientious, so she put the plan the three men in the newspaper office worked out with her into action. She sneaked back to the office at the far end of the hall and found paper and an envelope.
She wrote a long note detailing everything the men said. She repeated the words over in her mind so that she wouldn’t forget them. To be sure, she explained in the note what she did to get in position to hear what they said. When the men at the newspaper office saw that detailed information, they would surely know she had recorded it as it happened. She reread it to make sure it was accurate, made a few minor changes, then put the note in the envelope and sealed it.
When she was finished, she slipped it in her pocket, and then picked up the mop, the bucket, and the tray with wheels. It was faster to carry those things than to drag them along. She walked back down the hallway and over to the stairs, making sure her footsteps got louder as she neared the steps. She walked heavily down the stairs and through the lobby toward the back door. Even though the wheels weren’t squeaking, the room again lapsed into silence from the time the men heard her footsteps on the second floor until she was out the back door. Except for their silence, Silva and the others gave no indication they even knew she was there.
She walked out the back door and over to a trash bin in the parking lot between the Tracy Inn and the buildings on the next street. Being as there was no longer any trash pickup and no one had touched the bin for over a month, it seemed like the logical place to hide secret notes. She looked around to make sure no one was watching, and then she slipped the sealed envelope under the bin.
She hadn’t seen him, but there was one person watching. Madruga saw her leave the note from his vantage point behind the door of the vacant doughnut shop. When he was sure there was no one else watching, he sneaked into the lot and retrieved the note. At least this once, their plan worked perfectly.
* * * * *
“What do you make of it?” Madruga asked Campbell and West after they read Mary’s message.
“It’s hard to follow,” West replied, taking the note back and looking at it again. “According to this, Silva is talking about killing everyone on Catalina, but earlier he wanted to keep them alive so that they could produce things for him to use. All that miscellaneous information about where she was and what she was doing makes it long and confusing to me. Maybe using a housekeeper as a spy isn’t such a good idea.”
Campbell took the note and reread it. “It’s long because it’s detailed. Remember how she told the story before? She included a lot of extraneous data that meant nothing, but also included all the facts. She may not know what is important and what isn’t, but she has an orderly mind and records things as they happen. I would guess this is an accurate record of
what they said. We’ve all seen Silva in action for years. He is mercurial, and you never know what he’s going to do next. Frankly, I think he’s a borderline psycho.”
“I’d say it isn’t borderline,” Madruga said. “He’s just plain nuts. Either way, anything can set him off and get him to change course in midstream. At the moment, he appears to be concentrating on Catalina, and that could give us a little time to get organized.”
“If something sets him off, he could change again,” West noted.
“Your point is well taken,” said Campbell. “We’d better put things together as quickly as we can. Even if he doesn’t rush back to try to take over land here, if we can get the election in before he has time to build up his forces, we’re in better shape.”
“I agree,” said Madruga. “Meanwhile, I’m going to get word to a fellow I know in Santa Cruz. He has a way of getting messages to the coast guard cutter down south, and I’m sure they have contacts in Catalina. Those people need to be warned that they’re likely to be invaded within the month.”
* * * * *
“We’d like to start a settlement at Avalon with the Arthurs and the people from Simi Valley,” Peckham told Captain Kotchel when the coast guard officer called that afternoon. “Do you think that’s workable?”
“The Arthurs are definitely up to it,” Kotchel replied, “and the people from Simi are good, hardworking people. They’re weak on survival skills, though.”
“We’re sending six volunteers to help get them accustomed to it,” Peckham said. “Plus, we’ll send what supplies we can spare.”
“Then that should work out well. By the way, we just saw the boats that we told you were heading south. They are now heading north. Did they ever get to Catalina?”
“They did, and Zach can tell you all about it when you get together. He and his family, along with a boat with supplies and the six volunteers, are heading for Avalon in the morning.”
Seeking a Sane Society: Nothing is the Same (The Seeking Series Book 2) Page 6
